Ancient Greek history has been written almost entirely from the perspective of its cities, leaving the majority of the population—rural farmers and villagers—largely invisible. This project shifts the focus to the countryside of eastern Attica, using archaeological survey, pollen and sediment analysis, and climate data to reconstruct how ordinary people lived with, adapted to, and shaped their changing environment over centuries. The problem is that existing accounts of Greek antiquity are skewed toward elite urban narratives, offering only a partial picture of ancient life. Most people lived in agrarian settings, where seasonal shifts, soil fertility, and water availability directly shaped daily existence. By integrating physical remains with environmental and climatic records, ARTEMIS aims to produce a more accurate and inclusive history—one that accounts for how communities responded to drought, land degradation, or shifting coastlines. This is fundamentally curiosity-driven research. It will not directly alter infrastructure or supply chains. But a deeper understanding of how pre-industrial societies navigated environmental change could inform modern thinking about rural resilience and heritage preservation. Similar fundamental work in landscape archaeology has, in the past, reshaped how we understand human responses to climate stress—insights that quietly influence conservation policy and land management today.
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ARTEMIS aims to uncover the untold stories of ancient Greek communities, shifting the focus from cities to the countryside by generating an integrated human-environment narrative that brings the rural heart of ancient Greece to light. We achieve this by placing rural communities at the forefront of a re-telling of the past, focusing on their relationships with dynamic environments and changing climate (Objective 1). Traditional interpretations of Greek antiquity are dominated by elite narratives reflecting urban attitudes and scholarly discourse that quantifies rural economic capacity or social structures. Such accounts provide only a partial view of ancient life because, in all periods, most people lived in agrarian, rural settings where interactions with the surrounding landscape profoundly influenced their lives. This project will break down traditional urban-rural frames of reference in favour of a rural-urban blended community-focused narrative of everyday life. ARTEMIS addresses this challenge through a novel integrated methodology (Objective 2) of – (i) archaeological survey, (ii) palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and (iii) palaeoclimatic analysis. We develop, apply, test, and refine this approach by studying eastern Attica. With its rich archaeological record and distinctive landscapes, including fertile lowlands and wetlands, this region provides a unique setting in which to assess the relationships between cultural practices and environmental conditions. We pursue our aim and objectives through three research questions (RQ): RQ1. Rural communities and environmental change: How, and to what extent, did climatic fluctuation and environmental change influence the settlement patterns, agricultural practices and daily lives of rural communities in eastern Attica? RQ2. Community decision-making: How did social and cultural developments influence the ways in which rural communities modified and managed their natural and human environments over time? RQ3. New narratives: How can we integrate archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data to provide a more accurate and inclusive narrative of life in ancient Greece, challenging the traditional focus on elite, urban-based voices? The advantage of our integrated, interdisciplinary approach (App.) lies in bringing together the crucial contexts these fields provide for human activity. ARTEMIS’ archaeological data investigates the physical remains of past communities (App. 1), and integration with palaeoenvironmental data (App. 2) explains how these communities adapted to changing environments and climate. Our outcomes will directly address our research questions by reconstructing and illustrating both the influence of the environment on settlement patterns and agricultural practices (RQ1) and how communities lived within and impacted on their natural and human landscape (RQ2). Combined, this offers a fresh and inclusive new understanding of ancient Greek life (RQ3). ARTEMIS’ outputs include combining environmental proxies and archaeological survey data to develop new datasets and methodologies with applications for future collaborative research across the Mediterranean. The results will be shared through a suite of publications to engage with the scholarly community along with a range of co-creation events to engage with local stakeholders. The benefits of ARTEMIS will include and stem from a new history of ancient Greece by creating a landscape-focused narrative of marginalised communities that will have applications beyond academia for preserving and protecting rural heritage.
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